


Lockdown

by wheel_pen



Series: Agent and Doctor [5]
Category: The Bourne Legacy (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 20:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3303131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The worst-case scenario occurs: an agent at the Center goes rogue, shooting up the cafeteria and endangering the lives of everyone there. Includes several variations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Variation 1

Rachel was in her office doing paperwork when the noises started. First, her cell phone beeped. As she was reaching to answer it, a siren sounded—fortunately not in the same room, but rather in the outer office. Luckily Jenny had gone off to get something to eat. Rachel went into her exam room and stared out the doorway to the outer office, noting that this wasn’t the fire alarm but a different one, accompanied by a flashing yellow light.

That was the lockdown siren.

There was another beeping close to her and she stepped back fully into her exam room. The beeping came from a heavy metal panel, which then slid shut over the exam room doorway. They’d demonstrated this for her when she first started working here—the metal plate was a blast door, and it basically sealed her in to just her exam room and office. It could only be opened from either side with a complex electronic code, which of course Rachel wasn’t told. This was all for her protection, according to the safety officer: she was safely contained behind a highly secure door, which no threat could breach.

It had seemed so reasonable at the time, thanks to the charismatic safety officer. But now Rachel was left wondering, what exactly was the threat that necessitated such precautions?

She opened her phone and found a text message from the central dispatch. _Rogue agent in the building_ , it read. _Seek secure area immediately._ The phone buzzed again as she was processing that and she nearly dropped it. This time she’d been sent a picture of the rogue agent to look out for—one Bobby Brill. She was relieved it wasn’t someone she’d met.

Rogue agent—what did _that_ mean, exactly? With nothing better to do Rachel went back to her office and sought out her employee handbook, the thick spiralbound volume everyone said they’d read but no one ever had. By the time she found the definition for the phrase—an agent who has become extremely violent and unstable—she’d stumbled across a dozen other warnings and cautions that seriously made her rethink her career choice.

But, no need to worry, right? No rogue agent was getting to her, not with that blast door in place. She had her own bathroom and some food in the fridge, so she was fine. Maybe she would even get some work done while there was no possibility of interruption.

Of course _that_ was unrealistic. Rachel was intensely curious about what was going on, constantly checking her phone and email for updates, of which there were none. She wanted to know where this Bobby Brill was, what he was doing, what the response was. She couldn’t focus on anything else—it felt almost like if she allowed herself to forget something terrible was happening somewhere in the building, it might sneak up on her personally.

Just when she thought she was finally calming down, she heard a noise in the ceiling. It was like a few drops of water, or something else small, falling onto the ceiling tiles above her. She gazed up at the ceiling for a long moment, then stood and moved to a new position in front of her desk to stare at the most questionable tile. She doubted it was a coincidence—strange ceiling noises and a lockdown at the same time—but her question was, was it something normal, like… little-used pipes shooting anesthetic gas to the rogue agent’s location, or something she should be concerned about? Or both?

Then the ceiling tile she was staring at moved. It wobbled, then lifted away. And Jeremy’s face peered down at her.

Rachel wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or not. “Hello, Dr. Ward,” he said nonchalantly.

“Jeremy, what are you doing up there?” she demanded.

“I came to check on you,” he replied, which explained nothing. “Could you step back?”

Rachel moved aside to let Jeremy exit the ceiling. He did so with surprising strength and grace, grabbing the ceiling strut and unbending like a snake to set himself neatly on her office floor.

Well, perhaps ‘neatly’ was the wrong word. “Jeremy, you’re filthy,” Rachel pointed out.

He glanced over his smudged clothes without concern. “The ceiling ducts are dusty,” he noted. “I’ll secure the perimeter.”

“There’s no need to secure anything, the blast door’s locked me in,” Rachel assured him, following him through the exam room. He tested the blast door anyway. “Do you know the code to open it?” Rachel asked curiously.

“Do you _want_ to open it?” he replied with slight evasiveness—so the answer was probably yes, but he wasn’t _supposed_ to know.

“No, I guess not,” Rachel sighed. “It’s a lockdown for a reason—though I’m now questioning the security of my office,” she added with some exasperation. Blast doors, identity checks, fingerprint readers, armed guards—and Jeremy had basically bypassed them all by crawling along the ceiling ducts.

“Don’t worry, Dr. Ward,” Jeremy suggested confidently. “Bobby Brill couldn’t fit through the ceiling ducts. And he’s probably in custody by now. Or dead.” He did not seem very moved by this event.

Rachel gave him a hard look. “Change your clothes and clean up,” she ordered, handing him a set of scrubs, “and tell me what’s going on.”

Readily Jeremy began stripping off his dirty clothes, sprinkling dust bunnies around the exam room. The cleaning crew would not like that. “There’s a lockdown,” he told Rachel. “Bobby Brill went rogue inside the building. He’s an agent.”

“I know all that, Jeremy,” Rachel assured him, trying to be patient. “Can you tell me anything else?”

She could see him sorting through the information in his head, trying to decide what would be of most interest to her. Any second he was probably going to add that it was fish taco day or something. “Where _is_ Brill?” she finally asked, more specifically.

“The cafeteria.”

Rachel’s eyes widened. “Jenny went down there—“ She started to walk towards the door to the outer office, then stopped when she remembered the blast door blocking her path.

“Jenny’s okay,” Jeremy told her knowledgeably. “She’s in the kitchen. That’s a very secure location during a lockdown.”

“Wash your face and hands,” Rachel reiterated, leading him towards her bathroom. “You’re sure Jenny’s okay?” Another thought struck her. “Wait, were _you_ in the cafeteria? Did you see him—whatever?”

“Yes, I was there when he started shooting people, but Jenny made it into the kitchen safely,” he replied, scrubbing at his face.

“ _Shooting people_?” Rachel gasped. “Oh my G-d. I thought—he just was—not following orders—“ She was picturing a panic button scenario, where the guards rushed in and tranq’d an agent who’s started yelling or throwing things. Maybe he’d slipped their grasp once, hence the lockdown to contain him—but not _shooting_. “People have been hurt? How many? Was he still shooting when you left?”

Jeremy finished cleaning up and wandered from her bathroom. “Serious injuries, five to six,” he estimated thoughtfully. “Minor injuries, maybe a dozen. The guards had just broken through the blast doors when I left. By a ventilation duct.”

Rachel felt slightly light-headed and sat down heavily on the couch. Jeremy frowned in concern and perched beside her. “Dr. Ward? Are you okay?”

Rachel took a deep breath and let the surprise pass. “Okay, they’re gonna need medical staff down there,” she judged. “Can you get me down to the cafeteria?” She was already calculating what necessary supplies she could most easily transport.

“They have closer medical staff,” Jeremy countered sensibly. “You don’t need to go down there, Dr. Ward.” She opened her mouth to argue with him. “Once the lockdown is lifted, we can go,” he offered. “They might call for you anyway.”

It seemed a fair point, given that there were some unknown number of blast doors between here and the cafeteria. Rachel leaned back against the couch with a sigh. “Shooting people?” she said once again in disbelief. “Where did he get the gun?”

Jeremy mimicked her posture, leaning back. “There are weapons lockers around,” he shrugged.

“Agents can access them?”

“They aren’t supposed to.” But it can be done, his tone said.

She thought of something else suddenly and straightened up. “Are you okay?”

Jeremy straightened up too. “Yes.”

“Well, good.” Rachel was quiet a long moment. “So he walked into the cafeteria and started shooting people,” she went over. “And people were getting away from him, right? Like Jenny went into the kitchen.”

“Yes, several people left the cafeteria safely, or went to a secure location,” Jeremy assured her. She sensed that he didn’t quite understand why she _needed_ the reassurance but was content to humor her.

“And you got out through the ventilation duct.” They must have larger ones in the cafeteria than the ones in her office and exam room.

“Yes.”

“And you came here?”

“Yes, Dr. Ward.” Delicately he took her wrist to check her pulse and stared deeply into her eyes.

“I’m not in shock, Jeremy,” she told him, with a hint of annoyance, when she realized what he was doing.

“You seem disoriented.”

“ _Why_ did you come here, Jeremy?” Rachel asked explicitly, since he hadn’t gotten the question from her tone.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Rachel supposed that was a sweet impulse and patted his hand. “Well, thank you. Are you going to check on anyone else?” Maybe it was a thing agents did. Maybe the ceiling ducts were crawling with agents sweeping each floor.

“No.” He brought her hand back over to rest on top of his again.

It flashed through Rachel’s mind that maybe Jeremy was _also_ scared. Which initially didn’t make sense, he was trained to deal with and even cause such situations himself—but then she remembered that the Center was supposed to be a safe place for the agents, the place they considered home.

The place they were supposed to remain calm.

“Jeremy,” Rachel began, and he gazed at her attentively, “don’t take this the wrong way, but when Brill started shooting, why didn’t you stop him?”

Jeremy frowned at her. “What’s the wrong way to take that?” he wanted to know, completely missing her point.

“Just answer me.”

“Agents are supposed to remain calm at the Center,” he responded, as she’d expected. “We’re not supposed to attack anyone.”

“Even if they attack first?”

“Even then.”

That policy chilled her the more she thought about it—outside, each agent might be a deadly killing machine, but once inside, were they really as helpless as everyone else, maybe even more so? “It must have been really scary, then,” Rachel suggested carefully, “when he started shooting, and you couldn’t do anything about it.”

Jeremy cocked his head to the side and regarded her curiously. “Dr. Zhu will probably ask me that,” he remarked after a long moment.

“Ouch, tiger,” Rachel replied dryly. “I mean, sorry, I didn’t mean to remind you of her.” She knew how much he disliked Dr. Zhu.

“You don’t remind me of her, Dr. Ward,” Jeremy promised, and she smiled a little. “Do you think I should say I was scared?” he asked thoughtfully.

The question startled Rachel. “Well, being scared is a natural reaction in that situation,” she reassured him. “Especially when you can’t do anything about it. But you got yourself out of there safely, so I don’t think you should be embarrassed about feeling scared.”

“I wasn’t scared,” Jeremy clarified, sincerely.

“Oh.”

“Should I have been?”

Rachel sighed. “Too philosophical for me, tiger,” she admitted. “I guess if someone asks you should tell them the truth. That’s usually a good rule.”

“Actually I find it isn’t.”

Rachel patted his hand again, which he seemed to enjoy, and decided not to pursue that conversation any further. She didn’t want Dr. Zhu to accuse her of ‘coaching’ him or anything.

“So, do we just sit here until the lockdown is lifted?” she asked him.

“We can move around these rooms,” he countered literally.

“Do lockdowns happen often?” Rachel wanted to know. Or maybe she didn’t. “Or rogue agents?”

“Usually one or two lockdowns a year,” Jeremy estimated. “Not usually caused by rogue agents. The last rogue agent was three years, two months ago.”

“Why does an agent go rogue?” Rachel continued to probe. “He just—snaps one day, or—“

“The last one was Allie Gold,” Jeremy remembered. He seemed to attach little emotion to the event. “She failed her mission.”

Rachel nodded; she’d heard the agents could go a little haywire when they failed their missions. “Do you think Bobby Brill failed his mission?”

“No,” Jeremy assessed. “He’d been behaving abnormally for a while now. Susan Bates thinks he sustained head trauma on his last mission, but Daniel Black thinks it started months before that.”

“Aren’t _you_ a bunch of gossips,” Rachel noted. “When were you discussing this? In the ventilation shafts just now?”

Jeremy blinked at her. “No, last week.”

Rachel frowned. “Did you tell anyone you thought he was acting weird?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“No one asks us.”

Rachel wanted to roll her eyes, but that felt too dismissive considering the injured, perhaps dead, people in the cafeteria. “Jeremy, next time you think someone is acting weird, I want you to tell me, okay?” she tried to impress upon him. “Or someone else on the staff. Because maybe they could’ve intervened and helped Bobby before he started hurting anyone.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“I mean, I’m not trying to make you feel bad,” Rachel assured him hastily. “Just, in the future, if you think something’s wrong, say something.”

“Like I’m supposed to do with injuries,” he related.

“Exactly.”

Jeremy thought this over. “I think I would have, if it was someone I knew better. Like Susan.”

“Or Karl?” Rachel teased, trying to lighten the mood a little. She knew the two men did not seem to like each other, and indeed Jeremy made a little face at the mention of his name.

“I suppose,” he conceded.

“To protect other people,” Rachel reminded him more seriously. “People you know.” He nodded slowly, though she wasn’t sure if it really constituted understanding.

Suddenly there were more noises around the room—her phone buzzing, the blast doors beeping. “They’ve lifted the lockdown,” Jeremy predicted.

Rachel checked her phone and indeed the all-clear had been given. “Group 3 medical staff report to the cafeteria for triage,” she read as the message continued. “Prepare ORs for incoming patients. G-d, I’d better get down there,” she decided, quickly throwing some bandages, gloves, and disinfectant into a box.

“You’re not Group 3,” Jeremy pointed out, nonetheless carrying the box for her as they left the outer office. “That’s emergency medical technicians.”

“I’m sure they could use the help,” Rachel told him grimly. “You have first aid training?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you can help me, then.”

“They’ll probably tell all agents to report to our quarters soon,” Jeremy countered, although he still followed her, “and lock us in until they can make sure the rest of us aren’t going to go rogue.”

Rachel looked at him sharply. “Does that happen? One rogue agent setting off others?” She gave up on waiting for the elevator and headed for the stairs.

“It did once.” The three words were said blandly, but this time Rachel sensed something troubled him about that incident. Not unreasonably.

Jeremy’s cell phone buzzed and he checked the message. His expression indicated it was as he predicted. Rachel reached out to take the box of medical supplies from him. “Okay, if you have to go—“

“I’ll take you to the cafeteria first,” he assured her.

“You won’t get into trouble for that?” Rachel didn’t want jittery security people overreacting and calling _Jeremy_ rogue.

“I’ll have enough time,” he judged.

**

“Sir,” Tuyen summoned, “if you’ve got a minute, we’ve been analyzing footage from the Brill incident and we’ve found something interesting.”

“I already have teams analyzing the footage for damage and security response,” Quarles replied, nonetheless walking over to the station.

“Yes, sir,” Halvard agreed, “but we’ve been looking at the _agent_ response.”

“Brill?” Quarles asked in confusion.

“No, other agents who were in his vicinity,” Leith clarified.

“They didn’t do anything,” Quarles stated, still unsure about their point. “They weren’t _supposed_ to do anything.”

“Nothing _active_ , sir,” Kenzie agreed, “but we think we’ve found some interesting passive responses.”

Clearly Quarles was still waiting to be impressed. “You can have a couple minutes,” he allowed dubiously.

“Thank you, sir.” Tuyen pulled up four images on a large screen. “Here’s four views of the cafeteria,” he explained quickly. “There’s Brill down in the corner, at the door.” It was an image Quarles had seen many times in the last few days, the image of one of the agents he’d so carefully shepherded standing there about to wreak havoc on his facility.

“There were four other agents in the cafeteria at the time,” Halvard jumped in, pointing to the different quarters of the screen. “Karl Lund, Jeremy Green and Susan Bates, and Kate Thomas. We think they knew what Brill was going to do before anyone else did.”

“ _Knew_?” Quarles repeated sharply.

“Not like, they were _in_ on it,” Leith corrected hastily, glaring at his colleague for the poorly-chosen words. “But they picked up on signals that something was wrong long before the security algorithms did.”

“Okay, show me,” Quarles agreed.

The team nodded at each other quickly, pleased that their boss seemed interested. “Let’s start with Lund,” Kenzie directed. “Okay, this panel shows Bobby Brill. Up here is Lund in the northwest corner, synchronous time.”

“Brill walks in,” Tuyen narrated. “He’s got a gun in his pocket but no one can see it. He’s not even visibly twitchy yet. He’s just standing there, looking around.”

“Nothing suspicious, right?” Halvard added as the videos clicked by in slow motion. “But look at Lund. He’s turned around, he’s watching Brill, he knows something isn’t right.”

“He’s on the move,” Leith went on as Lund got up from his table and started to leave the frame. Leith followed him with a finger. “There! Look, he cuts right in front of Brill, who’s just now starting to get a little weird.”

“Where’s he going?” Quarles wanted to know. “There are closer exits…”

“He’s not leaving yet,” Kenzie countered. Another video feed popped up, tracking Lund as he approached a table of staff. “Security was watching _this_ because agents and staff don’t normally socialize—no one was watching Brill.”

“Who’s Lund talking to?” Quarles asked, as the agent bent down to say something to a young woman.

“That’s Jayla Horner, his physical therapist,” Tuyen reported. “They get along—look, see how he’s pulling her away from the table? Someone else at the table hit their panic button, _that’s_ the only reason guards were nearby when Brill lost it—because someone was worried about Lund.”

“Where’s he taking her?” Quarles queried, staring at the video with fascination.

“Watch. He slides her right past Brill, out the door,” Halvard pointed out. “Always keeps himself in between them.”

“But look!” Leith paused the video, which showed Karl in the foreground gazing directly at the camera, and Brill in the background with his newly-drawn gun. Quarles had seen this clip many times as well, but he’d always been focusing on the weapon. “Lund’s looking right at the camera, he’s like, ‘Hey, a-sholes, I know you’re watching me, you should be watching _this_ guy.’” Quarles blinked at him. “Um, or something like that,” Leith added, abashed.

“He could’ve taken Horner out another door,” Kenzie concluded, “but he wanted to make sure there were eyes on Brill. I think he was pointing him out.”

“Here’s his path,” Tuyen added, bringing up a schematic of the cafeteria. “The red dot is Brill, the blue is Lund. See, cuts across, grabs Horner, swings by Brill on the way out.”

Quarles watched the path replay a few times, then leaned back in the chair he’d taken. “Huh,” was all he could think to say for a moment. “Where’d they go?”

“Just down the hall is the entrance to the female agents’ locker room,” Halvard explained. “Lund probably wasn’t _headed_ there, because neither he nor Jayla Horner could access it, but—“

“Coincidentally, someone’s coming out right as he comes along,” Leith continued, as the hallway video footage played. “It’s Jill White. But she doesn’t end up coming out, she lets Lund and Horner in and shuts the door.”

“Pause it,” Quarles ordered. He checked the timestamps. “So in the cafeteria, Brill is waving his gun around but hasn’t actually fired yet, a dozen panic buttons are going off, the hallway is filling with guards—“

“And Lund has the staff member he likes behind the nearest secure door,” Kenzie finished with satisfaction. “And no one else leaves the locker room, even before the lockdown is called, so he must have told everyone in there to stay put.”

“How many people were in there?” Quarles asked curiously.

“Four other female agents, besides Jill White,” Tuyen reported, bringing up an infrared image with seven columns of red-orange. That was the best they could do in the locker rooms, at least at their level of access. “That big shape is Lund.”

“Mm-hmm,” Quarles remarked thoughtfully. “So he saves his friend, and he alerts security. That’s… very impressive,” he judged. “Has anyone talked to Lund or Horner?”

“No, sir,” Halvard replied. “They weren’t considered witnesses. And of course everyone forgot about the panic over Lund and didn’t follow it up.”

“Have them interviewed,” Quarles instructed. He paused to think for a long moment. “There were three other agents,” he remembered. “What did they do?”

“Kate Thomas is really awesome,” Leith avowed, bringing up the video they’d put together for her. “Okay, here she is in the northeast corner—same side of the room as Lund, but opposite corner. She’s getting a latte from the coffee bar, she drinks a lot of lattes.”

“They’re not supposed to have caffeine,” Quarles pointed out.

“Decaf,” Kenzie clarified. “We looked back at the old tapes and she’s at the coffee bar every day, sometimes more than once, and seems to be friendly with that barista right there. She chats with him.”

Quarles raised his eyebrows in surprise but said nothing. “So we’re back at the beginning,” Tuyen reminded him. “Here’s Brill just walking in the door. There—within seconds Thomas turns to look at him. She knows something isn’t right.”

“She takes her coffee, she takes the barista, she’s out the door,” Halvard narrated. He paused the tape. “Look at Brill. Not even sweating. Lund’s talking to Horner. Thomas is gone before anyone in Security even realizes Brill is a threat.”

“And where did _they_ go?” Quarles wanted to know.

“Okay, this is the really cool part,” Leith insisted. A view of the hallway appeared. “They go in the opposite direction from Lund. They get to the guard station where they have to ID check. The guards are like, ‘Huh? This is a weird pair.’” A couple of the others rolled their eyes behind Leith. “Then watch what she does here. Actually you can’t see it, but keep an eye on her coffee.” At the guard station, Thomas knelt down to tie her shoe, setting her coffee on the floor. When she stood up she was no longer carrying it. “You gotta love the ‘tying the shoe’ trick,” Leith remarked gleefully.

“Where did the coffee go?” Quarles asked, scanning the screen.

“We think she slid it over under the control mechanism for the gate,” Kenzie explained. “About ten seconds after she and the barista leave the security station, a temperature alarm goes off there. They’re fairly routine, happens when the mechanism gets overheated.” On screen, lights began flashing on the guards’ control panels.

“The gate automatically closes,” Tuyen explained, as it did so on screen, “and it stays shut for at least fifteen minutes while the guards run a routine diagnostic on the system. So no one can get through from that end.”

“So Brill can’t escape in that direction,” Quarles realized.

“And,” Halvard added, fast-forwarding slightly, “no one else can go to the cafeteria—regular employees, I mean, the guards responding to panic about Lund are coming from the other direction.” The image now showed a handful of office workers waiting impatiently at the closed gates. Suddenly they all jumped, looked around wildly, then scattered back to their offices.

“That’s the first shots,” Quarles surmised. “What’s the timing here?”

“Thomas is long gone by the time Brill starts shooting, she had at least a full minute’s head start,” Leith explained. “Which is a lot in one sense, but on the other hand, it’s _not_ very much time to come up with this whole plan.” Clearly he was a great admirer of Kate Thomas.

“And where did she take her barista?” Quarles asked as they followed her down the hall. “She’s going right by the admin office—that’s one of the most secure locations!”

“Only during a lockdown, which hasn’t been called yet,” Kenzie corrected, running the video again. “All that glass in the doors and walls—yes, it’s bulletproof, but security-wise, it’s questionable. And Thomas isn’t thinking about a lockdown, she’s thinking about _now_.”

“So where’d they go?” Quarles repeated.

Tuyen keyed up another screen. “The VIP movie theater,” he reported.

“Uh, what?” said Quarles. “How did Thomas get in there?”

“The barista did,” Halvard corrected. “He worked a screening there the night before and his code hadn’t expired yet. I bet anything he and Thomas had chatted about it, either this day or the day before.”

“Brilliant,” Leith enthused. “It’s a secure area with food and bathrooms, the front door bolts shut, and the back door leads to a maze of basement tunnels that Thomas can probably navigate like a rabbit in its den.” The others stared at him. “Er, which is great for losing a potential pursuer, if it came to that,” he added.

“So Lund draws Security’s attention to Brill and gets some guards nearby,” Quarles summarized, “while Thomas cuts off one of Brill’s escape routes and prevents other potential victims from entering the area.” He was going to be thinking about this for quite a while. “What did Green and Bates do?”

“Green and Bates were sitting together at a table along the south wall,” Kenzie began, starting the last round of synchronous video. “Again, notice that within seconds of Brill entering the room, they seem to know something bad is going to happen. The door to the south patio is right there, they could’ve slipped outside easily and just hidden out until the trouble was over.”

“But they didn’t,” Quarles presumed.

“No,” agreed Tuyen. “Okay, first Green is really looking around, getting the lay of the land. Then, he and Bates get up and head for the cashier and the kitchen, which they’re right next to.” On screen, Green deftly cut in line and lifted the counter bridge, letting himself and Bates back into the work area.

“If we follow Bates into the kitchen,” Halvard went on, switching cameras, “you can see that she’s securing the perimeter, rounding up the staff, even having them shut off the stoves and ovens to prevent a fire.”

“And they’re just going along with it?” Quarles asked in surprise.

“Wouldn’t _you_?” asked Leith dryly. “The kitchen staff doesn’t interact with agents much anyway—Bates is stomping around all authoritative, they’re gonna do what she says. And the cooks know Green since he put out that grease fire last year.”

“But here’s the really interesting part,” Kenzie went on. “Green’s out front, collecting people and sending them back into the kitchen—and look who it is. The cashier—long-time employee, okay, maybe Green knows him. Jenny Ruiz, Dr. Ward’s nurse—again, maybe someone he thinks positively of.”

“Who’s the next person in line?” Quarles asked as Green ushered another young woman into the kitchen.

“We had to use the facial recognition database to figure that one out,” Tuyen admitted. “She’s a temp, a file clerk on loan from DoD. She works in the vault all day, no way Green’s even seen her before.”

“And the last one is Dr. Kedar,” Halvard added, “who is Bates’s doctor, but word is she doesn’t like him that much, and anyway she’s back in the kitchen, Green’s the one bringing him in.”

“He’s just taking whoever’s nearby,” Quarles realized suddenly. “Whoever he can protect without drawing Brill’s attention.”

“Yes! Exactly,” Leith agreed with some excitement. “He’s _not_ just scooping up the one person he especially likes, he’s basically evacuating all the civilians he can get to, getting them to safety.”

Quarles sat back and thought that over for a moment. Maybe in some other ordinary extraordinary situation, that wouldn’t be such a big deal—but the agents were not really trained to protect the masses or even set their own goals—they were given a target or asset and they went after it with single-minded force.

Except when they showed they could do more than that.

“Okay,” Quarles said slowly. “Okay, but why the kitchen? It’s not really that secure. The main door locks but doesn’t bolt, and that metal gate Bates pulled down over the pass-through—that doesn’t lock at all. Right?”

“Normally, yes, the kitchen wouldn’t be a good choice to secure your position,” Kenzie agreed. “It’s spacious and has limited access, plus food and bathrooms; but like you said, none of the entrances are really secure. Unless there’s a lockdown.”

“Then, the blast panels cover every entrance, including the pass-through,” Tuyen went on. “ _Then_ , it becomes an extremely safe place to put a lot of people you want to protect from a rampaging lunatic.”

“Green predicted there would be a lockdown,” Quarles noted.

“Better than that,” Halvard revealed. “Gutierrez, one of the cooks—he reported that Green _told_ him to call the lockdown at a certain time. But Security called it first, before Gutierrez could do it.”

“And better even than _that_ ,” Leith added, fast-forwarding the tape a bit, “Green and Bates get people in the kitchen, the lockdown is called, _but_ they’re locked out of the kitchen themselves, on purpose it seems—they’re keeping low, keeping out of Brill’s eyeline. Then—sproing!” Green and Bates climbed on top of the counter and jumped up, out of the frame.

“Where’d they go?” Quarles questioned.

“We couldn’t figure it out at first, because the security cameras don’t cover that area,” Kenzie admitted. “Then we thought of this, which happened right after Green and Bates jumped.” The camera showed Brill switch from firing at an overturned table shielding terrified staff to, apparently, the opposite wall. “It took some searching but we tapped into a hidden camera at a different angle,” she added. The new footage, grainier than the rest, nonetheless clearly showed Green and Bates scrambling along the narrow ledge of the windows at the top of the wall, dodging something that cracked the glass behind them.

“My G-d.” Quarles stared at the video for a long moment as it played on a loop. “They’re drawing his fire. We thought he’d just randomly started shooting at the windows.”

“Basically, at this point, everyone still in the cafeteria is fish in a barrel for Brill,” Tuyen pointed out starkly. “The room was locked down remotely by Security _before_ the guards could get in, so right now they’re on the other side of the blast doors, key-coding their way in.”

“Whereas, if the lockdown had been called about a minute later, like Gutierrez said Green told him to, there would’ve been armed guards in the room first,” Halvard pointed out.

“So Green and Bates are providing targets for Brill, to keep him from shooting at the staff,” Leith reiterated. “But look what happens as soon as the guards break in—doors open, suddenly Brill’s got someone else to distract him, and the hidden cam catches Green and Bates sliding into the ventilation system. Ugh, how does he do that, he’s like a snake,” he added, disgusted and amazed at the same time, as Green squirmed his way into an air vent that at first seemed too small for him.

“So that’s how they ended up there,” Quarles realized. “And Bates goes to the library to check on Peggy Baumgartner, and Green goes to Dr. Ward’s office.”

“Right,” Kenzie confirmed. “We’re not really certain how he got from the ventilation system to the ceiling crawlspace, there don’t seem to be any breaches in the duct system.”

Quarles was silent for a moment. “I want a full report on this ASAP,” he finally ordered. “And interviews with all four agents and the staff they talked to—new interviews with questions about this footage, if necessary.”

He stood resolutely, a pensive expression on his face. There wasn’t much point to offering commendations to the agents—no one would ever know about them—but Quarles wanted to know exactly what they were thinking, to deviate from their expected course of action so radically. And yet so subtly, too, within the spirit of non-aggression that was drilled into them as the proper Center mindset. Quarles knew they weren’t mindless machines; mindless machines couldn’t complete the missions they were sent on. But the details of those missions were often lost, with the focus on results and broad outlines—maybe if he saw what they could do in the field, such ingenuity and initiative wouldn’t surprise him at all.

“Good job, you four,” Quarles added off-hand to the techs, before retreating to his office once more.


	2. Variation 2

“You can’t seriously think _Part III_ deserves inclusion with the other parts,” Dr. Kedar scoffed. “It’s like a horrible parody of the first two.”

“I’m not saying it’s anywhere as good as the other two,” Rachel clarified. “But, I think it has themes and character development that are essential to bringing the story closure.”

“I just find _III_ to be too clichéd,” opined Dr. Doran. “Forget the acting or whatever, it just seems a little tired to have this late-life redemption attempt, which he has to pay for with his daughter’s life—“ He stopped as he realized people were no longer paying attention to the conversation, but rather the person who was approaching their table in the cafeteria.

“Hi, Jeremy,” Rachel greeted casually. She was the only one who took his proximity easily; even in the security monitoring room eyes turned towards the agent interacting with the group of staff. “Is something wrong?” she asked, seeing his expression.

“Come with me, Dr. Ward,” he insisted.

“Are you hurt? What’s going on?” Rachel questioned instead. She didn’t want to be dismissive, but sometimes Jeremy’s priorities were not really in line with her own and she didn’t like to let him get away with monopolizing her time.

“We have to go now,” he said, quiet but determined. He reached out to touch her shoulder.

“Hey now,” warned Dr. Kedar. A panic button signal lit up in the security monitor office and they dispatched some guards to the cafeteria.

“No, it’s okay,” Rachel assured him, standing. “I’ll talk to you guys later—“

Jeremy was not in the mood for long good-byes and pulled Rachel gently but firmly towards the exit. “Jeremy, what—“ They sailed past another man who was standing near the door and Jeremy glanced up at a security camera, knowing it was focused on him. Rachel looked back over her shoulder at the man, whose body language seemed somehow off to her—nervous and twitchy. “That man back there—“

Guards were stomping down the hall towards them as they exited the cafeteria but Jeremy didn’t change direction. Rachel wasn’t exactly sure where he was headed but if he didn’t stop and explain himself soon there was going to be big trouble.

Suddenly a door opened in the wall beside them and Jeremy swerved Rachel in. With her superior reflexes Susan Bates, who was exiting, managed not to collide with them. “Brill’s gone rogue,” Jeremy told her brusquely, and then there was a scream from the direction of the cafeteria. Jeremy pulled the door shut behind them and the security bolts engaged, sealing them into what Rachel realized must be the female agents’ locker room. “Secure the perimeter,” Jeremy ordered Susan, who nodded immediately and disappeared around a corner.

Jeremy brought Rachel away from the door, towards the showers. The female agents in various stages of undress seemed mildly surprised to see them where they didn’t belong, but not alarmed or offended. “Brill’s gone rogue in the cafeteria,” he repeated. “We should stay here for the lockdown.”

“Lockdown?” Rachel asked him. “What lockdown?” Phones started ringing and buzzing around the room as everyone received an emergency alert about a rogue agent—and then the lockdown siren started to whine.

“Stay here,” Jeremy told Rachel. “Watch her,” he added to two agents nearby. Then he darted away.

“Jeremy—“ Rachel took a step to follow him and the two women moved forward to block her. “Okay then,” she agreed. “But what is going on?” she asked them. “What’s a rogue agent?”

“It means Bobby Brill’s lost his mind,” Min Lee opined. “They’re probably doing it to him on purpose. They were tired of him.” Min tended to be a little paranoid.

Jill White rolled her eyes slightly and continued to get dressed. “He’s doing something violent,” she predicted, “maybe shooting up the place. That’s the most common.”

“ _What_?” Rachel asked in alarm.

Jeremy reappeared. “The perimeter is secure,” he reported. “The blast doors have sealed us in.”

“Total headcount?” Jill asked.

“Eleven agents. Twelve total.” The twelfth being Rachel, presumably.

“So wait, Bobby Brill’s gone on some kind of—shooting rampage?” she wanted to know.

“I think so,” Jeremy confirmed. “He was very erratic in the cafeteria. I think he had a gun.”

“Oh my G-d,” Rachel breathed. She could only imagine what kind of damage an unhinged agent with a gun could do here, in a building full of ordinary staff.

“Here, sit down, Dr. Ward,” Jeremy directed, putting her down on one of the benches. “Don’t worry, with the blast doors in place he won’t be able to get in here.”

“Unless he knows the code,” Min pointed out. “I know a code. Do you know a code?”

“Maybe,” Jeremy hedged, unwilling to commit. “But there were guards heading down the hall just now. Even if he didn’t get locked into the cafeteria, he won’t get far.”

“Jeremy, wait a minute—how did you know to leave the cafeteria?” Rachel asked him in confusion.

“He was acting erratic,” Jeremy repeated matter-of-factly.

“But why didn’t you _tell_ anyone?” That was really her point. “My G-d, that whole table of people I was with—“ Rachel stood as if she were going to go back for them.

“Who would I tell?” Jeremy asked quizzically.

“Brill’s been off for weeks,” Susan judged. She dragged a bench closer to a set of lockers and used it to climb on top of them. “Maybe he sustained severe head trauma on his last mission.” She started prying the cover off a ventilation duct. “I’m going to the library.” With that she squeezed herself into the hole and disappeared.

“Brill’s been off for _months_ ,” Jill corrected, “since well before his last mission. I think he’s just slipping.”

“You all thought there was something wrong with him?” Rachel demanded. She couldn’t tell if this was accurate or just hindsight. “Did any of you report it?”

“Why would we do that?” Jill asked flatly.

“If you say you think something’s wrong with someone else, they just think there’s something wrong with _you_ ,” Min decided.

“Because maybe that would have prevented innocent people from getting _shot_ right now!” Rachel insisted in frustration. A dozen or so pairs of eyes blinked at her with little in the way of understanding. “And-and it would’ve helped Bobby, too,” she tried, in case they responded better to that angle. “Because—what do you think’s gonna happen to him now?”

“If he has a gun, he’ll probably be shot,” Jeremy predicted, without emotion.

“And not with a tranquilizer dart, either,” added Min, equally flat.

Rachel sighed, her thoughts too jumbled to find another way to explain this. “Look, the next time you think there’s something wrong with one of the other agents, come tell me about it,” she said. “Or _someone_ on the staff, at least.”

“You won’t think there’s something wrong with _us_?” Min asked suspiciously.

“No, I promise I’ll look into it.”

“I think there’s a lot wrong with a _lot_ of people,” Min mused, but declined to elaborate after glancing around at the other agents present.

“Okay, Dr. Ward,” Jeremy agreed readily. She hadn’t really been worried about him, though.

“And—don’t take this the wrong way,” Rachel went on, sitting back down, “but if you knew something was wrong with Bobby, why didn’t you try to stop him just now?”

“Stop him how?” Jeremy wanted to know.

“Well, J---s, Jeremy, you’re the trained killing machine,” she snapped, more angrily than she’d meant. It was just unnerving to be in here with all of these eerily calm people, knowing something horrible was taking place on the other side of the door. “Couldn’t you have—tackled him to the ground or something?” He frowned at her, and another thought suddenly flashed into her mind. “Were you scared?”

Only after the words were out did it occur to her this was far from a private setting, and maybe he didn’t want to admit his fear in front of other agents. But she should have known better, she supposed. “No, I wasn’t scared,” Jeremy assured her, genuinely. “But we’re supposed to remain calm at the Center.”

Rachel gave him a look. “So you can’t even go after someone who’s attacking people?”

“No.” Several of the others shook their heads in confirmation.

“Oh.” And here she’d always kind of felt like she was especially safe at work, being surrounded by people who could ably defend the place against any threat. Not so much, really.

“But I got the guards to come,” Jeremy told her, eager to alleviate the disappointment he sensed from her. He pitched his story towards the other agents. “She was eating lunch with some of the other doctors, and I went over and touched her shoulder.”

“Clever,” Jill agreed.

“They’ll be watching you from now on,” Min predicted darkly.

Rachel didn’t get it. “Uh, what?”

“Security monitor algorithms look for agents and staff in close proximity outside of official appointments,” Jill informed her.

“And someone on the staff _always_ pushes their panic button at physical contact,” Min added, as though this were obvious.

Rachel stared between them. “What? Why?”

Some of the agents were staring at _her_ with a similar, if muted, befuddlement. “Dr. Ward is very physically affectionate,” Jeremy informed them. There was a touch of pride in his tone but the phrasing made Rachel’s face flush. “ _And_ , she’s never used her panic button.” The reactions ranged from mild amazement to a suspicion that something was wrong with her.

“Okay, you’re saying you did that on purpose, to put guards nearby?” Rachel sputtered.

“Well, I wanted to get you out of the cafeteria to safety, too, Dr. Ward,” Jeremy explained. “And then I walked right by Bobby so the camera would focus on him.”

“Make their tools work for you,” Min noted approvingly.

Rachel was not certain how big an impact those actions could possibly have had, honestly. But for someone who was forbidden to act in an aggressive manner, maybe it was the best he could come up with. “Well, thanks for getting me out of there,” she finally said. It wasn’t like she wished he _hadn’t_.

“You’re welcome, Dr. Ward.”

She looked around the spare locker room with its utilitarian furnishings and moist, slightly musty smell. “So, we just sit here until the lockdown’s lifted?”

“We can move around,” Jeremy assured her literally. “There’s bathrooms over there. No food, though, unless someone brought some in.” No one volunteered.

“Why did Susan go to the library?” Rachel questioned curiously.

“I think she was going to check on Peggy Baumgartner,” Jeremy speculated. “She’s one of the librarians.” Jill rolled her eyes slightly and made a small scoffing noise. “She reminds Susan of her grandmother,” he defended.

“Who does _she_ ”—Rachel—“remind _you_ of?” Jill asked him pointedly, and Jeremy growled at her.

“Okay, calm down,” Rachel suggested, moving to sit in between them as Jill bared her teeth in response. The last thing they needed was for tensions to rise as they were trapped in this relatively small space. “Let’s talk about something else. What’s your favorite movie?”


	3. Variation 3

“Large, extra sweet, extra espresso?” the barista asked when Rachel came up in line.

“You make me sound like an addict, Manuel,” she protested, then, “Yes.” He smirked in a friendly way and turned to work on the beverage.

She had to admit, a free coffee shop was a pretty nice perk of working here. Although with all the odd hours, late nights, and weekends the staff pulled, maybe it was in their employers’ best interests to keep a steady stream of caffeine dripping into them.

“Hello, Dr. Ward,” said a familiar voice.

“Hello, Jeremy,” she greeted. “Didn’t know you drank coffee.”

“I’m not supposed to have caffeine,” he countered. He rocked back and forth on his heels idly, his gaze constantly flickering around the room before settling on her for long seconds.

“Are you casing the joint?” she joked.

“I’m alert to changes in my environment.” Silence.

Nice guy, Jeremy. Not so great in the conversation department, but he seemed to at least _try_ , unlike certain other patients she had. “You’re not exercising with that hand yet, are you?” she questioned him.

Jeremy unclenched the hand in question and turned back to look at her. “No, Dr. Ward. You said not to yet.”

“Good.” His eyes strayed back towards the door in a slightly distracted manner, but before she could look herself, Manuel finished her coffee. She swiped her ID to complete the transaction—the coffee might be free, but they still kept track of how much you got. “Thanks, I really needed—“

Suddenly Jeremy was at her elbow. “Dr. Ward, we have to go,” he told her, quietly but firmly.

“What?” Rachel asked in confusion. “Go where? Are you okay?”

“Walk out that door right there,” Jeremy directed, his gentle but insistent pushing leaving her little choice. “You should leave the room, too,” he advised Manuel.

“Dr. Ward, are you—“ said the barista helplessly.

“It’s okay,” Rachel assured him, hoping it was. They stepped into the hall and Jeremy steered her towards the guard post at one end. “What is going on?” she hissed at him.

“Act like everything is fine,” he instructed, which immediately suggested that it _wasn’t_. “Give me your coffee.”

There were a million ways this odd behavior could be heading towards something bad, Rachel thought quickly, but she didn’t get a negative vibe from Jeremy. It sound rather unprofessional, even to her, but she was used to trusting her instincts.

The ever-bored guards gave the pair of them an odd look as they approached—agents and staff didn’t really socialize together. But Jeremy had said to act like everything was fine, so…

“Hey, José, Sondra,” Rachel greeted cheerfully. “Have you heard if it’s stopped raining yet?” She swiped her finger across the scanner and the light turned green, allowing her to pass through the gate.

“I think it’s slowed to a sprinkle,” Sondra replied, a bit cautiously. Rachel had separated from Jeremy, though, and was in fact now on the other side of the gate while he knelt to tie his shoe, so she obviously wasn’t being coerced by him. Or so Rachel hoped.

“Jeremy,” Rachel prompted with some exasperation. She shook her head a little at José as if to say, what can you do?

“Safety first,” Jeremy replied earnestly. Finally he stood and was cleared for entrance through the gate.

Together they turned the corner, out of the guards’ sight. And what did it say about Rachel that she was willing to subvert totally reasonable safety features just to follow Jeremy’s lead? Probably nothing good. “Where are we going?” she wanted to know.

He glanced at the admin offices up ahead, then made a decision to go past them. “Manuel the barista worked a party in the VIP theater last night,” he revealed, in what may or may not have been an answer to her question. “His entry code should still be valid.”

“How did you get his entry code?” Rachel asked in confusion.

“Kate Thomas gave it to me.”

“How did _she_ get it?”

“I didn’t ask.”

Behind them an alarm sounded, not a loud, urgent one but more like an elevator dinging over and over. “What’s that?” Rachel wanted to know.

“The gate mechanism has overheated, causing it to automatically shut down,” Jeremy replied knowledgeably. He typed some numbers into a keypad on the wall and the door to the VIP theater slid open. Expertly he spun her inside, then pushed the door shut, making sure it bolted securely. “The guards will have to run a diagnostic before they can open it again, which takes at least fifteen minutes.”

There was a small concession stand off to one side and bathrooms on the other, and one lone door that opened into the theater proper, a large room with about twenty-five seats and a glaring red exit sign near the screen.

“Jeremy, _what_ is going on?” Rachel insisted, finally resisting his attempts to pull her along. “And—where’s my coffee?” she suddenly realized.

“Please stand right here while I secure the perimeter,” Jeremy requested, positioning her by the middle row of seats. He headed off to check the exit door, partially disappearing into the low-contrast room. “I’m sorry about your coffee, Dr. Ward,” he added, his voice echoing slightly. “I’ll try to make you more.”

“Forget about the coffee, Jeremy!” she told him forcefully. “Just—where are you?” There was no sound except for the hum of machinery in the open room. “Jeremy?”

“I’m right—“ Rachel gasped as he reappeared directly behind her. “I’m sorry, Dr. Ward. Here, sit down. The perimeter is secure.”

“What’s going on?” she asked again, grabbing his hand so he couldn’t vanish on her.

“It’s okay, Dr. Ward, we’re safe here,” he tried to reassure her. “There’s food and bathrooms, and the exit door down there leads to the sub-basement tunnels in case we need to escape.”

“Escape?” Rachel repeated faintly.

“I don’t know the tunnels as well as Kate Thomas,” he admitted, “but I think I could get us out.”

Rachel was not sure if she was being held hostage or not. There had been all kinds of warnings and training scenarios when she was hired, involving the psychological stability, or lack thereof, of the agents; and this was eerily similar to one of the role-plays they’d done. The lesson had been, don’t go off to a strange place alone with an agent.

Obviously Rachel hadn’t learned that.

“Jeremy,” she began, squeezing his hand. He gazed at her attentively. “I don’t understand what’s going on, and I’m kind of scared. Can you explain your plan to me?”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Ward, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, with apparent sincerity. She nodded, then gave him a prompting look. “I brought you here to keep you safe. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“What might hurt me, Jeremy?” she asked slowly. Then suddenly both of their phones buzzed. It was an alert from central dispatch, about a ‘rogue agent.’

“There’s probably going to be a siren—“ Jeremy warned, and then there was.

“That’s the lockdown siren,” Rachel realized.

“A blast door will cover the entrance we came through,” Jeremy told her. “No one will be able to get in that way.”

Rachel read the message again. “Jeremy,” she said, her voice just a whisper, “who’s the rogue agent?”

“Bobby Brill,” he answered matter-of-factly. “I thought he was acting erratic in the cafeteria—“ Another message to both of them identified the rogue agent exactly as Jeremy had said. “—so I wanted to get you someplace safe.”

Rachel let out a huge breath and sagged back against the seat. “Good G-d, Jeremy, I thought you were kidnapping me and planning a break-out!” she admitted in relief.

He looked slightly wounded by this. “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t have time to explain my plan.”

“Well, for the eighty-fifth time, explain it now,” she requested. “Start with what a rogue agent is.”

“That’s when an agent becomes unstable and violent at the Center, and runs around hurting people,” he informed her. He seemed to attach little emotion to the idea. “So they call a lockdown and everyone tries to get to a secure zone. Then the agent has fewer places to run, because they can’t get through the blast doors.”

“And there’s fewer people they can hurt,” Rachel surmised. “Wait, so, there’s a guy loose in the cafeteria, running around—shooting people?” she guessed.

“Probably,” Jeremy replied. “Allie Gold used a crossbow but they’re harder to conceal.”

“Oh G-d.” Any sense of relief Rachel had felt about Jeremy genuinely wanting to protect her evaporated. “Someone with skills like yours, only he’s snapped and is shooting people—“

“We don’t _know_ that he shot anyone,” Jeremy demurred. “Maybe someone stopped him in time.”

Another thought flashed through her mind. “Why didn’t _you_ stop him? If you thought he was dangerous—“

“I can’t,” Jeremy told her simply. “I have to stay calm at the Center.”

“Wha—even when someone else is _not_ calm, and attacking people?” Rachel sputtered.

“Even then.”

“Okay. Okay.” Rachel tried to process this logically. “Then why didn’t you tell the guards at the gate? What was all that nonsense about tying your shoe?”

“While I was tying my shoe I pushed the coffee cup under the gate mechanism—“ he started to explain.

“Causing it to overheat and shut down for fifteen minutes,” Rachel realized, “cutting off Brill’s escape route in that direction.”

“And preventing anyone else from going to the cafeteria from that side,” he added modestly.

“Jeremy, that’s—“ Frankly Rachel was kind of astounded. “That’s brilliant.” He seemed pleased with the praise. “But _so_ convoluted,” she couldn’t help adding. “Why didn’t you just _tell_ José and Sondra to close the gate?”

Clearly she was still not getting it. “They wouldn’t have believed me,” he asserted, as though it should be obvious. “And explaining would’ve taken too long. I had to get you somewhere safe.”

“Well, that’s certainly much appreciated,” she assured him. “But—G-d—next time you get the feeling someone is about to shoot up the place, please be less discreet in warning people.” He didn’t seem to know what to say to that. “So does this happen often around here?” Rachel asked after a moment.

“The last lockdown was five months, twenty-two days ago,” he informed her. “An electrical storm knocked out the security cameras so they locked everyone down until they were fixed.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Rachel remarked sarcastically. Nothing like being trapped in an office somewhere due to a _power outage_. “What about the last rogue agent? You mentioned—Allie Gold?”

“That was three years, two months ago,” he explained. “She sat on top of the roof and picked people off with a crossbow.”

“Oh G-d. Was anyone hurt?”

“Three people were killed right away,” Jeremy remembered, “and four people were in critical condition and I never saw them again.” He relayed the story flatly, as though it were an old sports game of little interest. “I was only hit in the shoulder.”

Rachel’s eyes widened. “She shot _you_?” It was hard to imagine anyone wanting to hurt Jeremy, anyone who knew him anyway.

“I don’t think she was really aiming by that point,” he shrugged.

“That must have been really scary,” Rachel suggested. “Since you couldn’t do anything about it.” That dictate, obviously deeply ingrained, left the superpowered agents even more helpless than the ordinary people around them.

“Not really,” Jeremy told her, and although his tone was a little distant she didn’t get the feeling he was lying.

Rachel sighed and leaned back in her seat. “So what do we do now? Just sit here and wait until the lockdown ends?”

“Yes,” Jeremy agreed. “Do you want to watch a movie? I can put one on for you.”

“I have a feeling we’re not supposed to be in here,” Rachel replied dryly, “so let’s not compound the trouble by enjoying ourselves, okay?”

She could see he didn’t understand that. But that didn’t stop him from agreeing. “Okay, Dr. Ward.”


End file.
